From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Wed Mar 24 10:35:25 2004 Subject: Re: Which version of Octave? From: Jonathan Stickel To: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 08:33:29 -0800 I don't have much basis to post to this thread since I have touched a Mac only a few times in my life. That said, what about installing linux directly on your Mac hardware, perhaps dual boot with MacOSX? Gentoo Linux is available for the ppc architecture, and octave is available for easy install through Gentoo's portage system (http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=octave). Please know that I'm posting out of curiosity, not because I claim to know the solution. Regards, Jonathan Joe Koski wrote: > on 3/23/04 3:41 PM, Henry F. Mollet at mollet at pacbell dot net wrote: > > >>Hi Joe, >>So let me bring this back to octave on Mac. Installation of Octave on Mac is >>apparently much more difficult than it should be unless you're a Unix guru. >>If I upgrade to Panther, I'd rather not read a bash manual. Should Mac not >>mean easy installation of Octave? Something corresponding to a binary .exe >>as is available for Windows? Why do we need Fink or DarwinPorts to be able >>to install Octave? As much as I try, I just don't understand nor need this >>complication regarding the installation or upgrading of octave on a Mac. >>Henry >> > > Henry, I certainly empathize. I spent the better part of the month of > December fighting with UNIX make files for octave and octave-forge in a > futile attempt to install octave. I finally capitulated and installed > earlier versions via Fink. I could write a book, but I don't think anyone > would want to read it. Part of that effort was just to teach myself more > about UNIX. > > As I see it there are several contributing reasons to our problems. First, > UNIX is still relatively new to the Mac, and Mac users are still a minority > within the UNIX community. This leads to "critical mass" problems. How many > Mac octave users are there? A dozen? A hundred? There simply are not enough > Mac users (yet?) to to justify a simple .dmg type installation of octave and > octave-forge. Also, this is basically Linux software, and we're fortunate > that we can port it at all. > > Gaurav Khanna is close to solving the Mac octave installation problem at > > http://hpc.sourceforge.net/ > > Once you understand his approach, it's a 10 minute job to install octave and > octave-forge from his binaries. I may opt for his approach if he posts a > recent enough version to handle my multi-dimensional matrix problems. That > leaves me with the installation of gnuplot, aquaterm, and maybe some other > GNU/sourceforge oriented dependencies. I have successfully built gnuplot and > aquaterm from source previously, but haven't put all the pieces of the > octave puzzle together yet. > > Maybe a "cookbook" approach combining make from source for gnuplot and > aquaterm (and whatever else) with the HPC binaries for octave and > octave-forge is the simplest current Mac installation approach. If I work > out those steps, I'll post them. I don't object to the use of make files as > long as they work. Another approach would be to use DarwinPorts for gnuplot > and aquaterm. Although Fink theoretically is a source for gnuplot and > aquaterm, I'd rather go all-Fink or no-Fink and not try to split the > installation. > > In the meanwhile, let's thank Jim, Paul, Per and many others for making > octave available and usable on a Mac. We all know what the alternative > costs. > > Joe ------------------------------------------------------------- Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL. Octave's home on the web: http://www.octave.org How to fund new projects: http://www.octave.org/funding.html Subscription information: http://www.octave.org/archive.html -------------------------------------------------------------